9 th October 2023.
Way back before Covid struck the world, the organiser of the Venice to Monaco in 2017 got in touch to sort of test the water about a similar style of event in North Africa. The initial response was encouraging and so the Atlas Rally was born.
After a great many unavoidable delays, in October 2022 a firm start date was set for 3rd April 2024 in Granada, Spain and the finish in Malaga on 21st April after visiting Marrakech and of course the Atlas mountains of Morocco. I’m sure there have been a few sleepless nights after the devastating magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck a region about 75 km south of Marrakech but, to date, there have been no adverse communications.
For this event we will be using the 1970 MGB GT that we should have driven in Scandanavia. I can truthfully say that it is now very near completion and a few shake-down runs will be made in the coming weeks. The ferry from Rosslare to Bilbao is booked and we will enjoy a leisurely bimble down to the south of Spain for a bit of a rest before the start. I have even booked the car in for a service / fluid change and a full spanner check with a company here in Estepona that I heard about. We’ll be resting here again after the rally and the car will also receive any attention it might need after the rough tracks of N Africa.
The entry is quite small and we are well acquainted with a few other folk on the event so it should be quite special. Small groups allow for a more informal social side to any tour or rally.
14th November 2023
Five months to go before we start the Atlas Rally 2024. Rally organiser, Adrian Epps has obviously had his hands full since the catastrophic earthquake hit Morocco at the beginning of September but he is convinced this rally has to run. It is the right thing to do to support the people of this part of N. Africa by bringing and spending our tourist dollars to support them.
A few days ago he sent out an updated itinerary and explained that while most of the route will be on decent roads, there will of course be some more “challenging” sections; crossing dry river beds, Wadis, mountain trails and of course a bit of true desert driving (extra backup laid on too). We have already booked our ferry tickets and it was only afterwards that we realised that we’ll be driving down through Spain on Easter weekend – not the best of timings for finding town centre hotels – so Penny is working away at a route to get us down to the Mediterranean Coast. Way back in 2003 we were driving back North through Spain on this weekend and nearly ended up as part of one of the parades, so we don’t want to do that again.
The start was originally planned for Grenada but has now moved to Sotogrande, about 45 mins from the house near Estepona.
Day 1, 3rd April: Sotogrande – briefing and signing on
Day 2, 4th April: Sotogrande to Rabat. Early start for the drive to the ferry terminal at Tarifa then a late lunch in Tangiers.
Day 3, 5th April: Rabat to near Safi via Casablanca
Day 4, 6th April: Safi to Essaouira
Day 5, 7th April: Essaouira to Taghazout and our first venture into the mountains
Day 6, 8th April: Taghazout to Fam el Hisn, more wilderness driving
Day 7, 9th April: Fam el Hisn to Taroudant – Eid al-Fitr celebrations today!
Day 8, 10th April: Rest day
Day 9, 11th April: Taroudant to Marrakech
Day 10, 12th April: Rest day
Day 11, 13th April: Marrakech to Skoura
Day 12, 14th April: Skoura to Zagora
Day 13, 15th April: Crossing the Sahara dunes to Lake Iriki
Day 14, 16th April: Zagora to Ait Bouguemez – more mountain wilderness
Day 15, 17th April: Ait Bouguemez to Ouzoud
Day 16, 18th April: Ouzoud to Fes
Day 17, 19th April: Rest day
Day 18, 20th April: Fes to Tangier
Day 19, 21st April: Tangier to Algeciras by ferry.
15th November 2023
Here are the scheduled routes out and back. Once we have the Spanish bit properly planned, I’ll post them too.
28th December 2023
This morning we received an update email from our organizer, Adrian. After a further recce trip earlier in the month there have naturally been a few tweaks to the route so the new path looks like this:
Early on we are being given the luxury of staying at “The Azyar Lodge is a lovely property and is located on what is, in my opinion at least, one of the best stretches of coastline in Morocco. It is wild and unspoilt.”
25th March 2024
Sorry there hasn’t been a post for a long time but I have been working all hours to get the MGB GT ready for this trip to N. Africa. Sadly, last week Penny & I had a chat and made the decision that the car just isn’t ready.
We have had the motor running quite happily on the bench but for whatever reason it isn’t happy in the car. At first we suspected that there was too much fuel pressure so I added a regulator into the feed. This improved things a bit but, as you can see in the video, it is spitting out atomised fuel vapour from the carburettors which isn’t good to put it mildly. This is a very explosive mixture and is right on top of the VERY hot exhaust manifold and hence pretty dangerous.
Just like last year Penny’s wee TT is being pressed into service again and at thirteen years old is about to become a ‘classic’ in it’s own right.
We’re off to Rosslare tomorrow morning to catch the first sailing of the season to Spain on Wednesday. Hopefully some pics and videos next week before we join the rest of the group in Sotogrande and head off to Africa.
26th March 2024
This morning, just about to do a final check around the house before leaving an email pops in from Brittany Ferries. It seems that the Bay of Biscay is a bit too bumpy to let us sail to Bilbao so they’ve decided to double our driving distance on Thursday from one to two thousand Km and drop us off at Cherbourg in Northern France.
Typed this from a B&B (but no second B) a few hundred yards from the ferry port. Dinner in a pub across the road tonight and I hope the heating comes on sometime soon – it’s perishing here.
27th March 2024
Very early start today and a very short run down to the quay. As usual, after checking in at the right time it was a case of “hurry up and wait”. About an hour and a half later we’re on board and sitting down to a nice continental cheese and cold cuts breakfast in the lounge. We’re on the Savona, a new addition to the fleet and it certainly looks it and with a similar deck layout to the Stena Birkenhead boats. A second delay before we left the quay as another ferry came in and berthed but we finally were on our way at about ten o’clock.
Typing this at lunchtime, a bit SW of Pembrokeshire and it really is a bit “bumpy” already. You’ve got to hold onto your glass of wine because it doesn’t look as though it will stay on the table.
That’s it for today, maybe more tomorrow from Euroland.
28th March 2024
952 Km in ten hours six minutes from leaving the Santona at 06:54 (third off) in Cherbourg to checking in at 17:00 to Charles V Castle, built in Hondarriba, just outside Bilbao in the tenth century. Quite a nice view from our window, I hope you’ll agree.
That was a tough day to try and catch up a bit. We should have been leaving Bilbao in early afternoon and had planned to take a leisurely bimble over a couple of nights to Estepona on the S Coast. Now, because of the excursion to France, we’re going to just have one break and try to get to our destination at roughly the original scheduled time on Saturday. That way we will still have a couple of days to rest before the start of the “Atlas 2024”.
It has been quite a few years since I last remember driving in France and, in my opinion, it is still a horrible experience. Don’t get me wrong, French roads are fabulously smooth, well engineered examples of the art but the drivers! They seem to have only a very loose connection with their mirrors, indicators and white lines. Oh, and the number of cars that nearly put us off the road as they were texting at 130+Kph is something I wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy. I also vaguely remember the motorway stops as something quite pleasant but nowadays the food and toilets aren’t too far off English standards. Still, we’re here, safe and sound and looking forward to the lovely quiet Spanish highways from now on.
29th March 2024 pt 1:
Just a quickie. On the road south and at about 4,700 feet high on the motorway, in thick snow and zero degrees we came across a car at 90deg across the motorway. It didn’t look like any casualties thank goodness.
29th March 2024 pt 2:
First a quick note about last night’s dinner. We had a pretty brief stroll around the medieval alleys in ‘our’ part of the old town and I must say it is very impressive that so many of the old buildings are still used as domestic, residential properties, and very impressive too. Back at the plaza in front of Charles V weekend pad we decided that the “Mika Jatetaxea” would maybe do as somewhere for our evening meal. A tiny place with maybe only eight or nine tables we couldn’t have a normal sit down one, instead making do with a bar-stool high table sort of thing. Well, talk about worth the discomfort. The food was stupendous and that really isn’t a good enough word. We had a couple of sharing Pintxos (Basque version of Tapas) first – Penny with Bacalo (salt Cod in a super creamy sauce of some sort and I had, how shall I describe it? Offal from a goose that’s been raised on a special diet (so as not to offend our ‘woke’ friends). This was followed by prawns in a wonderful fresh tomato salsa for me and Penny had a salmon ceviche/smoked concoction with some sort of unidentified green foam dressing. Both absolutely fabulous. All accompanied by a very decent Ribero tinto for just €78. Teriffic!
Today we had a decent breakfast and set off at a quite civilised time to see how far South we could get. Being Good Friday, the roads were pretty quiet so we hammered on at a comfortable pace. As I said earlier, lunch was great and the roads (apart from a wee bit in Madrid) almost empty. Things were progressing so well we pushed on a bit farther than expected and ended up actually ahead of where we had planned for the original itinerary. Purely by chance, it’s a hotel we’ve stayed at before on the Sierra Nevada rally in 2015. Have a look at our 2015 blog for more info.
So, the score today is about 809 Km. Grand total of motorway tolls so far is €68.74. Apart from the last stretch of the A4 in Andalusia (crap) the roads have been even better that the Frenchies. Tomorrow only about 300ish Km for an early “in” at Estepona for a couple of days break.
I will be quiet for a while and sort through some pics and videos.
3rd April 2024
For the first time in years we drove along the coast road to the West of Estepona and my how the development has exploded. It shouldn’t be a surprise, it’s the same everywhere along the Costa.
Here we are at the SO Sotogrande, an immense development on the inland side of the motorway. Ten minutes to drive from the security gate to check-in and then a golf buggy to take us and our bags to our accommodation. I think the last time we were in Sotogrande, there were no golf courses and really only the apartment block around the marina but that was at least twenty years ago.
Briefing later and handing out road books and navigation i-pads then dinner. We’ve already met up with Paul & Mary Kane from Canada. This time they are driving an American AMX; we first me them in Venice when they were driving a Jaguar XK 140. Also Mark and Sue Godfrey in a very nice wee MGA. They are pretty hot competitors we first met on the Classic Malts all the way back in 2008.
Can’t wait to get started!
5th April 2024
Apologies for the shortage of posts. Last Wednesday we set off from Sotogrande and a quite pleasant but brief drive to the ferry terminal at Tarifa.
The ferries are the high speed sort of catamaran that used to sail from Belfast to Cairnryan (I think) which meant the crossing to Tangiers only took about an hour. Customs were most concerned that we weren’t carrying drones for some reason but passed through quite quickly then into the office building on site to exchange some Euros for Dirhams (MADs) It works out about eleven to the Euro so it’s pretty easy to work things out. We already had sorted some car insurance for Morocco but were advised that the local paperwork is more acceptable to the local constabulary so another 100€ was needed.
The roadbook took us to an old French colonial style hotel in the wealthier part of the city for lunch. It took absolute ages and cost 660 MAD (60€) for two small, individual cheese quiche and a couple of glasses of tomato juice.
About 250Km of motorways brought us to the capital of Morocco, Rabat and the Fairmont Hotel. Both Tangier and Rabat seem to have armed guards or police at every junction and every 50m on the road – odd. Anyway we were in so late and it took so long to download the pics and videos that I decided not to post last night. Another observation is the absolute cleanliness everywhere – we’ve never seen so many gardiners, road sweepers or whatever. Everything seems totally trimmed.
Today we were taken first by an entertaining inland rudimentary route, then by motorway for another 385Km to Safi, a bit North West of Marrakesh. the rural route consisted of rough tracks, mostly washed away by recent torrential rains and through villages. The second part, 240Km of motorway was as boring as you’d expect. A couple of casualties sadly. Andy and Claudine in their Volvo have cried off with a chest infection and Paul and Sandra Merryweather have had electrical gremlins all day. Towards the end of the run, Tony and Lee-Ann Strelzow suffered a coolant leak in their Derby Bentley. I looks as though a previous lash-up repair has failed. With the temperatures hitting 37⁰C today, this might be serious. We have finished up at the Azyar Ocean Lodge, perched on a cliff with miles of empty sandy, Atlantic beach below us.
Not enough WiFi for pics or videos I’m afraid, maybe soon I hope.
6th April 2024
Day three on the road. We all enjoyed a group dinner last night but because of Ramadan, no alcohol whatsoever. Nobody said we couldn’t partake of our own travelling cocktail cabinet so a couple of very nice G&Ts in or cabin did very nicely, thank you very much. The hotel had a spectacular site atop cliffs overlooking the Atlantic and almost no-one on the shore. Late on, the Strelzows showed up with our travelling mechanic, Charlie. The radiator leak had progressively got worse and it seemed that the system was pressurising too which is strange. They were towed to a garage in the nearest town and the guys there promised, despite the religious hindrance, they would get it done the next day.
An easy start today and no more motorways to tolerate. The weather wasn’t as hot either, thank goodness but a bit overcast with some mist from the ocean nearly all day. The route stayed mostly close to the coast on decent quality, empty roads that would perhaps qualify as B (and a 1/2), not A roads at home. There was one ‘scenic’ off-road stretch that was pretty rough and looked more like a detour through the council dump, hidden behind some tenement blocks. We chickened out of this and stuck to the main road through town.
We dodged the optional beach drive (as did some others) but got a speeding ticket instead. In our info pack and the tourist guides the national speed limits are 120Kph on motorways, 100Kph on rural main roads and 40Kph in urban areas. After ages and ages reading our passports, insurance documents, International Driving Permits, the vehicle’s V5 registration and our certificate of matriculation (entry permission), I was shown the speed camera reading – 91Kph. With no Berber on my part and no English on theirs, I tried to explain what I though the speed limit was. The officer very kindly and with a beaming smile politely informed us that the limit is actually 87Kph! Who knew? 150 MADs was duly handed over and an official receipt very carefully folded and presented to us with a proper salute, a grin and then thumbs up and we were allowed to proceed after a delay of about half an hour. Apparently this stretch is notorious for these traps as the local constabulary has invested heavily in new cameras and has to fund them somehow. The next two traps we passed through quite serenely.
Lunch was at “La Fromagerie” and consisted, as you might guess, of cheese, with of course salad and water. The promised tagine never materialised but I have to admit that it was very tasty. Shortly after we reached the hippy paradise of Essaouira and found a proper car park. The attendant beamed widely, proud of his single tooth and had us led to a special roped off area for visiting dignitaries. Actually I think it was his car-wash concession area, but for 20 washers (sorry, Dirhams) we were happy. A short walk saw us enveloped by the chaos of the Medina and Kasbah – the street market (not covered so not a Souk) and the fortified citadel.
We’ve ended up in a Riad or hotel, a few Km out of town and have a pretty comfortable room on the roof terrace. Very French , there is almost no lighting in the room – two 40 watt lamps at either end and a 15 watt reading lamp on one side of the bed (the other one doesn’t work). The shower has no lighting at all and the drain doesn’t. The plumbing gurgles and Mary Kane reported that the flush on her toilet cistern has broken off.
Supper tonight will have wine – whoopee!
Tomorrow will take us even further South to Taghazout and we’ll be in a Hilton so maybe some pictures might be posted. Keep your fingers crossed.
6th April 2024 pt2:
I hope you can see the mountain road we climbed. Taken from just before the land slide. We have a bit of time off in a couple of days so hopefully the bandwidth will be decent enough to upload some video.
7th April 2024
Day four:
A relatively easy start and a short run from Essaouira to Imsouane for a coffee break. This is a pretty scruffy hippy surfer town that apparently is planned to be demolished. Probably no-one will notice because it looks as though it is collapsing already. A second short hop down the coast to Timlaline Dunes to see the enormous, well, sand dunes. The road to there climbed higher and higher, clinging to the cliff above the shore; for those at home think something like Tor Head leading to Portstewart Strand – except much, much bigger and impressive in every way, and it isn’t cold and raining. There were a few of the usual hawkers trying to part us from our cash for dune surfing or camel rides but we weren’t interested. Along the way we came across a double-decker cattle truck, presumably going to market – never seen one before. The animals looked absolutely miserable.
After a long, very French lunch – olives and a tomato thingy to start then lamb chop, lamb kebab, a slice of rolled and stuffed lamb shoulder with spicy chopped vegetables and spuds (for the first time) and polished off with an unbelievably rich cream, chocolate and meringue pudding in the “Restaurant Quartier D’Ete” in Tamri we were ready for the long, long climb up the Western foothills of the Haut Atlas mountains to have a look at Paradise Valley.
We’ve done lots and lots of mountain passes in the Alps and Jura, Pyrennes, Cantabria, not to mention the Andes, New Zealand and Japan but this newly constructed road was absolutely stunning. Hairpin after sweeping curve, nerve tingling drops on either side, steep cuttings and the occasional landslide boulder or gravel in the way couldn’t spoil this drive. Until of course we started to meet some of our cars coming back. It turned out there was a much more serious land slip just before the turn into what we were due to visit and the road was blocked. Doing a U turn at over 3,500 ft on a very narrow road and with no barriers really does sharpen your focus, I can tell you.
Back down to sea level and with even more ultra tight hairpins and here I am typing this in our room at the Hilton in Taghazout, a beach side tourist town but it’ll do for the night.
Forgot to mention, the Strelzows are back in the game with their repaired Bentley – good to see them again.
8th April 2024
Today we had a bit of a tedious run along the coast then around Agadir to begin the climb into the Anti Atlas mountains. Very urban or industrial and lots of choking diesel and two stroke motorcycles.
Once clear of town the road improved dramatically. passing through various random villages and police checks we climbed and climbed through the lovely clear air. Having been a bit chilly, it soon warmed up above the clouds. At one of the checkpoints we were greeted by – and use your mind’s eye here – none other than Sacha Baron Cohen, complete with bushy moustache and the daftest ‘cod’ English “Helloooo”.
Near the top, at about 4,200 feet we enjoyed a very welcome coffee and a chat with Charlie, our mechanic. Both he and us, at some point during the climb had stopped to enjoy the view and had a delightful chat with a local on his Honda 50 moped. His English was very good and he wished us well on our journey.
Later on, after rounding a bluff we found an amazing Medina, perched on top of a hill so we stopped there for our DIY picnic bap with goat’s cheese and tomato followed by a brief stroll around the ramparts.
Tonight we are in a French place and visiting the “Painted Stones”, an art installation somewhere nearby.
9th April 2024
On Monday night we took a very short drive out into the bush near our hotel, the El Malara at Tafraoute to see “The Painted Boulders”. The work of the Belgian artist, Jean Verame, these are spread out over several kilometers. They were created in 1984 as a tribute to his late wife. It took three months and eighteen thousand litres of paint. Our tour leader treated us to a glass of wine and some treats before we headed back for dinner. Over the superb meal, there was a lot of debate about whether it was art or vandalism.
This morning, Tuesday, we were due to visit the boulders again by a different route for a group photo but we managed to get part way there before almost bogging down in the sand so we turned around and cut this section out. From there it was only a shortish drive to the Ait Mansour Gorge, a ribbon like oasis between the towering cliffs and was pretty and spectacular before climbing up once again to enjoy a stunning panorama of the Moroccan Grand Canyon ad then the Window of Aoukerda before finishing up at the end of the road, just before a small hamlet. We retraced our track and reached nearly 5,400 feet and 36°C sweeping over the utterly barren yet beautiful landscape. Lunch was another cheese and tomato sandwich (the components bought from a shop in Tafraoute) in the shade of an Argan tree beside the road. In about half an hour only two cars passed, one a local, the other our backup truck. During lulls in the very fresh wind, the silence was complete.
After an unremarkable transit, we’ve ended up at a RV/campsite called Borj Biramane in time for a couple of hours rest and respite from the searing sun. As I write this, the hazy atmosphere that we’ve had all day has thickened and looks like it might turn into a dust storm, and it is still very hot. Our simple mud built shack is surprisingly cool but I think we’ll have the a/c on soon. Almost no WiFi tonight so goodness knows when this will be posted.
10th April 2024
Last night at the campsite at Fam El Hisn it blew and blew. Dust was in the air constantly and the hills behind our cabin occasionally vanished altogether. The wooden shutters on our windows clanked and banged so eventually we were glad to get up, shower and dressed for breakfast. I think the best description of this meal would be meager, a glass of sweetened orange juice, some coffee, a couple of slices of bread with various spreads available and a slice of sponge cake. Not much there for the makings of a picnic lunch on the road I’m afraid.
As usual, we were last on the road but soon passed the Bentley in what, from a distance with our more northern eyes, looked like snow blowing over the road. Of course it was sand; not a full-blown sandstorm like those we’ve endured in Mongolia but in this instance, enough to make us slow down because the visibility became quite poor occasionally. As the day progressed we passed many impressive rock formations, odd striations in the hillsides (could be a good geology lesson in there somewhere) and goats up a tree eating argan leaves!
Eid was declared last night and in the village of Ait Rahhal we noticed for the first time that folk on the streets were obviously dressed in their finest for this celebration after Ramadan. Onwards we plugged on relentless, straight dusty roads. In 112Km we saw two bikers and three cars. The temperature was climbing yet we drove on and on. At 153Km we filled the fuel tank and had a chance to pass the time of day with half a dozen Spanish motorcyclists (and their backup truck) doing something very similar to us just with different vehicles. Vegetation was pretty sparse, yet not as thin as the day before. One of the waypoints we had to look out for to make sure we were still on the correct route was: “Giant Acacia” which we duly found.
In a delightful stretch of oasis trees we found the tour organiser’s “pop-up” coffee shop so we had a very welcome ten or so minutes break in the company of the gentleman who owned the grove. As we left, he very politely wished us “Bon Voyage”.
After a few semi derelict villages we had hoped to find some lunch in a decent sized town but because of Eid we went hungry – small family cafes just don’t open as they want to celebrate the end of their fasting days with their friends and neighbours. We passed the Spanish bunch again, sheltering in some shade on a raised pavement, presumably tucking into their packed lunches. At this point we decided to press on to tonight’s billet in Taroudant which turned out to be a good move. Just outside the ancient walled town, all the rooms in our hotel are grouped around a delightful garden. Mind you, at 40°C we weren’t inclined to have a look around. Lunch was a lovely salad and then time for a bit of a rest. Later we nipped out to have a look at town in the evening when it had cooled down a bit; only 36°C Full-on, manic lunacy all around. The entire population seemed to be out on the street celebrating. In some places the stench from the fishmongers was overpowering and there were lots of other very strange pongs too.
Tomorrow – exotic Marrakesh!
12th April 2024 – pt 1
First off – some photographs from 9th April: cocktails at the Painted Boulders, the Grand Canyon, roadside picnic and some random road signs
12th April 2024 – pt 3
In the Souk at Marrakesh
Saturday 13th April:
After lunch, more mountains and we ended up at L’Ma Lodge. The gardens are beautiful with lots of cushions, shady canopies and seating areas under the trees, even a special comfortable play tent for children – not to mention the pool and sunbeds. One feature that caught my eye and tickled my funnybone was a straw hat tree. The remains of an old Olive (or something) with lots and lots of straw hats dangling from it for the guests to use: a very nice touch. After another hearty dinner we all toddled off to our mud brick rooms (ours on the first floor). Some good photos and videos to come.
Sunday 14th April:
Apologies for no post yesterday but we were out of mobile range so here’s a bit of a taste for the driving over the last couple of days. Tonight’s connection in Zagora is pretty feeble too so pics and videos will have to wait …………………………
Skoura to Zagora. Last night the clocks went forward by an hour so once again we are on BST. All very confusing. We had to lose an hour from UK back in Spain then two on landing in Morocco. now we’ve regained one but will lose it again when we get back to Euroland – I think but am probably wrong.
Shortly after leaving we stopped to have a look at Kasbah Amridil, a semi restored 17th century fortress that is still owned by the original family. This Kasbah featured in “Lawrence of Arabia” and appears on the 50 dirham note! Mind you, they don’t occupy the rammed mud bit we saw; theirs is the steel, concrete and glass shack around the back! All very interesting, only slightly spoiled by an over persistant guide/hawker who we soon managed to shrug off. Some tedious main road stretches then more mountains but not quite as high but in this province the driving standard is somewhat more robustly enthusiastic. Overtaking on blind bends – no problem. Straightlining three and a half lanes, on a crawler lane for trucks uphill – no problem. Overtaking on hairpins with a couple of thousand feet drop (for us) – no problem. (Penny doesn’t agree with the no problem!) Then a bit of a side route took us through a few villages with quite large, ruined Kasbahs and ruined old small houses and a self created picnic (from Carrefour in Ouarzazate) beside the road, before driving to our billet for the next two nights. By the way Ouarzazate is home to two film studios which have made loads of films needing desert scenes so not quite like the studios in Belfast!
Fingers crossed I can fire up some pics and video tomorrow. Some of the tour are going out into the Sahara for “The Dunes Experience” but we think the Audi isn’t really the right tool for the job.
15th April 2024
Today is a rest day in Zagora. Last night we enjoyed a decent meal (not Tagine!) and a glass or two of vin rouge thanks to our organiser. Today we popped into town to take a pic of a famous sign (to be posted soon), get some cash out of an ATM, buy some wine from a liquor store and put the car through a car wash. The last didn’t happen because two of the three lavages we visited had two or three large trucks waiting in line and the third reeked like a sewer. Back at our lovely, peaceful hotel to rest up and bung some pics and videos.
This first bunch is a selection from the group WhatsApp
15th April 2024 pt 5
15th April 2024 pt 2
15th April 2024 pt 3
15th April 2024 pt 4
16th April 2024: Zagora to Bouguemez – 342Km.
A very tough day’s driving from the charming and very friendly Azalai Desert Lodge to the very isolated Ait Bouguemez Touda Eco Lodge began with a very dusty trip through some very narrow alleys to get out of the Azalai environs and out onto the open road. We had been sort of ticked off by the organiser for not using this route ‘in’ last night but as we’d already sussed that it was the way ‘out’ this morning we didn’t miss much at all. After a tedious crawl through the sprawling strip development metropolis we eventually filled up at N’Kob (no sniggering at the back please). A friend of ours rode his motorcycle to Gobbler’s Knob in Canada a few years ago (an excellent read by the way) so we’ve added to the tally of odd place names, then turned right to head up Tizi N’Tazazert pass to have coffee at a super wee roadside place at 7,500 ft – 2,300m high. Lots of ADV touring bikers and enduro camper types were there too.
Once down the other side, we drove through Boulmaine Dades and began the ascent of the second big pass. On one part of this leg the road was quite narrow, about 1.5 cars wide and we were plagued with minibuses who never yielded an inch so we were on the gravel verge quite often. Eventually the other traffic petered and we climbed and climbed, and then climbed some more. Near the top of Tizi ‘N’Ait-Hamed we arrived at a hairpin with the organiser’s car parked just around the bend and the wee MGA stopped in front of us. It was decided that it was too steep and rough for the MG and they were waiting for a tow from Charlie Neale’s backup truck. We walked up, had a look and talked about the problem a bit more. Kieron & Phil blasted up in their SLC Merc while the Strelzow’s Bentley ran out of puff a corner below. I made the decision that, while it was quite rough with large boulders down the middle of the track, I could perhaps make it using some trialling skills from years ago. Penny walked up as she didn’t fancy being in the car during this stage and so I went for it. I bogged down a bit at one spot and also stalled but luckily ploughed through to clear the problem. The alternative was probably several hundreds of miles detour – Phew! Off we went, reaching the top then down the other side. The sign said 3,005m – just a whisker under 10,000ft.
The third pass, Tizi ‘N-Ait-Imi, was absolutely horrible with no road surface to speak of, just rough, compacted gravel and we crawled up in mostly first gear with the poor wee Audi threatening to self destruct at every hairpin. Once down the other side there was a brief run through some pretty squalid villages where the youngsters were a horrible nuisance then up a very steep, narrow muddy goat track to our lodge for the night.
17th April 2024: Bouguemez to Ouzoud – 215Km
Last night there were a few grumbles about the previous day’s drive; one saying that what he signed up and paid good money for was described as a tour on mostly good, well surfaced roads with an occasional excursion onto smooth, sandy tracks, not the sort of car-breaking endurance rally terrain we’ve all done in the past. One car was advised to not do today’s first 90Km as it would probably be too rough yet we all received a WhatsApp message this morning that read: “my opinion is that the unsealed portion is doable for any car on this rally”. Whatever, Penny & I had already decided that a gentle bimble on good quality mountain roads with no hazards and very little traffic was much preferable and we could quite happily do without seeing the “Cathedral Rock”. Paul and Sandra Merryweather also made the same choice and we joined them at the pool in early afternoon.
So first thing we drove for about an hour or so to Azilal then turned right to join the last section of the rally route from a huge reservoir and hydro dam followed by a pleasant run to Ouzoud, then parked up and had a pizza for lunch and a stroll to see the Cascades – a big tourist attraction hence a lot of parking & guide touts. This claims to be Africa’s Niagara but I couldn’t really see the comparison. We checked into tonight’s pleasant lodge and relaxed for a while – typing this.
17th April 2024 pt 1
17th April 2024 pt2
17th April 2024 pt3
No WiFi yesterday, hence the silence from Morocco
19th April 2024: Ifrane to Chefchaouen – 257Km
Another unremarkable drive to begin with but towards the end of the morning section we hit about 30Km of tarmac that was described in the road book as “a little iffy” and Adrian, our organiser cautioned me, before we set off, that it was a bit broken and I might consider avoiding. I/we decided to give it a go. It was the worst, most miserable drive we’ve ever endured. Worse than the Mongolian washboard, much worse that the Patagonian gravel, infinitely worse than the bad sections a few days ago, this fractured, cratered and twisted mess of old tarmac threatened to tear chunks out of the Audi’s undercarriage every few seconds. At one point we had an experienced American team behind in a very well prepared endurance rally car and they couldn’t make time on us. Towards the end there was one rather poorly drawn tulip diagram that looked like we should drive straight on through yet another of the “council dump” sections for the last few Km to get a good view of Moulay Idriss, our destination. I had a very quick look at the rest of the route, then at Google and that offered an extra 20Km in the same time as the next 5Km of the official route so we reckoned it would be gentler to take that and forgo the “excellent views” of the town. Even his WhatsApp message of the night before also offered to skip this part. Blow me but if we didn’t receive a message about twenty minutes later telling us that we’d missed the best part of the drive and that the tarmac is good after where we’d branched off. I’m afraid I ‘lit up’ on hearing this – the roadbook made no mention of an improvement and we had already been cautioned about the track.
When we finally arrived at Moulay Idriss, a poor representation of very many Andalucian “Pueblo Blanco” towns, one parking tout was very near to being run over because we didn’t want to stop. Just past the town centre, we’d been encouraged to have a look at some ancient aqueduct (1910). Once back in the town centre we had a priveleged parking area, inside the pedestrian market area for display. Our group then climbed up lots of steep, twisty and narrow streets to a fantastic lunch venue in an ancient Moorish townhouse for a superb treat.
That over, and back to the cars we headed had a look around an impressive Roman site called Volubilis then headed for Auberge Dardara, just outside Chefchaouen, an ancient important pilgrimage site in Islam. Some folk went into town to have a look around with Adrian acting as a taxi as he felt it wasn’t safe to park the cars there. We decided to do it in the morning on the way to Tangier and the finish. Our room/cabin was cold and the bed was damp. No drinking water or soap/shampoo. The a/c didn’t produce any heat so our only comfort was to turn on a tiny fridge and hope that the heat exchanger fins might possibly warm things up. Dinner was yet another chicken Tagine, probably the worst yet; I had a tiny piece of leg and half a potato. Oh, and it was dry yet again, only water on the table. The room was freezing as the log fire went out and we all sat with our quilted jackets on. An early night yet again on the hardest bed yet. No hot water in the morning certainly didn’t improve our mood and the breakfast was on the poor side of meagre.
20th April 2024: Tangier Ferry Port
For our drive to Tangier P & I detoured a bit to have a look at the town. We followed the roadbooks instructions to what should have been our parking area but it was closed off with bollards to prevent use. It was beginning to rain so we passed on that experience and decided to miss the mountain route and take the main road because of low clouds obscuring the views.
The last night was in the Tangier Hilton. We had a bit of a walk around but as it was a bit away from the tourist area we went back and re-packed for the trip back to Spain. The whole party was taxied out to some restaurant inside the Medina where we were promised a deluxe, rooftop terrace meal. It was cold and raining. The orders were given and we waited and waited, eventually in the dark some food appeared and then eventually the electricity decided to work. Did I mention it was a selection of Tagines (again) and dry (again). The whole bunch couldn’t wait to get away from what turned out to be a thoroughly miserable last night (non) party. we shared a taxi back to the Hilton with Tony and Lee-Ann Strelzow and went looking for a drink. The lobby bar closed at eight o’clock so we went to the 15th floor where the main bar and restaurant are. Guess what – BOOM BOOM disco shaking the windows so we went to the restaurant and asked if we could sit and just order drinks. It wasn’t really that easy but we were eventually allowed to sit. A shared bottle of wine helped things and we were eventually joined by others from our group.
21st April 2024: Tangier to Tarifa to Villacana – about 90Km
We all queued up for the boat and for the first time in our experience, all the cars were X-Rayed, presumably for smuggled refugees. The hour long crossing passed uneventfully and we were back in Villacana for a late lunch. The washing machine was fired up and we relaxed at last.
There will be more details, photographs and videos to be added later but that’ll have to wait until we get home. “That’s All Folks!”
To finish the Atlas Rally off, here are the last few photographs before my Sony DSLR gave up the will to live. That said, it has been back to Sony UK for a service and it was returned the following week with a very pleasant note that all it needed was a clean on the viewfinder sensor – too much fine Sahara / Atlas dust! First class service – well done to Sony.
Pics: 1 – The Sat-Nav image of the road ahead up in the mountains.
2 – New road under construction in the High Atlas.
3 – The walk down to a waterfall with no water.
4 – Our damp room at Chefchaouen.
5 – Just one of the fabulous Roman mosaics at Volubilis.
6 – Penny in the Roman ruins.
7 – The “Hat Tree” at L’Ma Lodge
8 – An upside down window.
9 – 52 Days to Timbuctu
10 – The altitude (in metres) of a coffee stop.
11 – The Kasbah at Ouarzazate.
Going the Extra Mile 